


The Mistake

by MewMewPsychic



Category: Ori and the Blind Forest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23691514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MewMewPsychic/pseuds/MewMewPsychic
Summary: For all that Ori saved Nibel, he wasn't exactly the ideal hero and did a lot of mistakes through his adventure. And given the nature of video games and one where a significant part of the world is made of spikes, such as Ori & The Blind Forest, it leaves the chance of messing up a jump or failing to dodge some other obstacle to be rather high. Especially given Ori's young age.From the perspective of a player, those failed timelines are immediately aborted, with Ori vanishing in a puff of light motes and the game backpedaling to your last Soul Link, pretending Ori didn't just die.... let's look at this situation from a bit more in-universe perspective, shall we?
Comments: 20
Kudos: 42





	The Mistake

“Be careful, Ori!” Sein was rather alarmed. And so was Ori.

The monsters had been relentless. Long cuts and bite marks covered Ori’s chest and legs, one of his arms dangling limply. He had tried to climb his way past a nearby ledge only to find that the arm just wouldn’t move no matter how much he willed it to.

But the worst was the pain and the feeling of exhaustion that overcame him. His entire frame was hurting. He tried to be strong, for the sake of Sein and all the memories inside him but he found it increasingly difficult.

The journey was not going well. Why did that giant bird thing want him and his kind dead so much? Why do she hate the light so much? Then there were the monsters. So many of them, all of fangs, claws, and screaming hate. Why did they want to kill him? What had he done to deserve this? Sein had told him that as children of Decay, they simply saw him as an obstacle, as something disgusting to hurt and squash, like some bug crawling over your food. That somebody might look at a person and think of them that way… he couldn’t understand it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to understand it.

He wished he were home. He wished there was still a home to return to. He wished his mom was alive.

His dark thoughts caused him to not look where he was going and thus, he raised his right hoof a bit too low to clear the rock right in front of him. This, of course, upset his balance. Normally, he would just stumble a bit, his tail flailing to help him stay on his hooves but unfortunately, a monster had bit particularly hard on his tail a hour ago. The crunch had been sickening and the pain had punched the air out of his lungs, paralyzing his entire body with convulsing pain, a deafening scream escaping his throat. Sein had promptly blasted the thing to ashes with her Light beams of sorts but it hadn’t undone the damage.

Some of those odd plants containing that weird green Light-covered goo would do a lot of good right about now. Which is a thought he had for the past few hours.

Thus, here he was, tripping again, falling straight on his chest and banging his head on a rock. He yelped in pure pain as the world blackened for a second and he felt the world blurring and spinning. The pain was too much. He didn’t want to get up. He didn’t want to continue. He just wanted to be home. He just wanted for all of this to have been a bad dream. He just wanted the pain, the cold, all those monsters snapping their jaws at him to go away.

“Please, Ori. Please, don’t cry.” Sein’s voice came to him, the sphere lowering and brushing against his fur. “I am here, Ori. I am here. It’s going to be alright. You hear me? It’s going to be alright.”

“No. No, it’s not. I wanna go home…” Ori cried softly, his frame trembling.

Sein didn’t say anything. What was there to say? She couldn’t possibly tell him that his home was gone or that he had to be strong. And the truth was, she wasn’t extremely confident in this, either. She wanted to save Nibel, to give Ori a home. The salvation of Nibel also meant her own, as well. She does not want to die, after all. But as the quest progressed and Ori kept getting hurt again and again, the temptation became stronger and stronger to direct the child toward the shores and instruct him to build himself a raft. To just… leave Nibel. To leave this doomed land, this graveyard, to save himself.

But he wasn’t some mature adult who could simply move to another forest and make himself a new home. Ori was a child, her child, twice orphan, his home torn from him twice. He would never survive out there, not alone. And with the Spirit Tree lifeless, the last of its Light used up, Sein was grimly aware that she would only last so long. Her wisp form’s Light reserves may be vast, being the remnants of the Spirit Tree’s, but it was a remnant and without her body, they would run out soon.

How soon that ‘soon’ was, she did not know. But she would not live long enough to watch over him until he came of age, that is for certain.

She… tried not to think of the idea of leaving him all alone. Of failing him, again, this time for good.

“Please, you can’t give up. Look, I’m sure there will be a healing plant right by the next ledge. If not, I’m sure there’s a Spirit Well nearby. You will be alright. You’ll make it.”

Despite his trembling and tears, Ori slid a hand on the ground and then, gripping some blades of grass, managed to find purchase. Gathering what strength he had left, he lifted himself back to his hooves. As he did, Sein flew off and placed herself in front of him, inspecting the new bruise on his forehead, the newest addition to the impressive and increasingly ominous collection of bruises covering the child.

For a moment, Ori felt Sein probe his Light, feeling his being, her worry washing over him. Was he badly hurt? He did not know. But he knew that he was hurting all over and that a very nasty headache was just added to the long list of various aches and injuries he was covered with. Still, Sein spoke of a Spirit Well nearby.

He tried to picture the flows of Light streaming from the strange, stone construct. How the rays would bend and flow, sliding inside him and making all of the pain and exhaustion just go away. Of the feeling of warmth and the weightlessness as he’d find himself floating in the embrace of the Light. Yes, that would be nice. His body wouldn’t hurt all over, he wouldn’t feel like he was dragging a big weight with every step he made, his hooves would stop hurting.

“So, where is it? The Spirit Well, I mean.” Ori said, looking expectantly at the small sphere of Light.

“Oh, oh right. It should be right about… here!” Sein said, clearly hesitating before letting out a small flash of light, moving in the air as if wanting to point in a direction. “Yep! I’m sure it’s right around the corner!”   
  
Ori would have crossed his arms if he could. Given one of his arms couldn’t move, he instead just gave the ball of light an annoyed glare. “... you think?”

There was a noticeable pause before Sein replied. “N-no! I’m am certain there is one right in the area over there! I mean, I am the Spirit Tree’s Light! Why would I forget something like the location of every Spirit Well in my own land? That… would be silly! Of course I know the way, Ori!”

Ori was tempted to point out that many times now, the both of them had run in circles all over the place because, as it turned out, Sein apparently forgot where everything is supposed to be. She claimed it was a result of Kuro crushing her in her claws. The young spirit suspected that actually, the ball of light didn’t really remember where everything was in Nibel and was just trying to avoid saying that she’s just as lost as he was.

He sighed and kept walking. Sein might be the Spirit Tree’s Light and capable of doing many amazing things but walking for him was not among them, unfortunately. He panted with each step, feeling himself faint. He tried to think of the Spirit Well, of how good it would feel. He just had to make it.

As he came by a cliff, his legs almost gave out. He tried to breathe but it was getting harder to do so. Despite panting as hard as he could, it felt like so very little was getting in and the world kept spinning.

He… he…

A biting, cold, overwhelming pain in his stomach. Every part of his body hurting. His entire body feeling impossible heavy, an exhaustion worse than anything he had ever experienced filling him. The darkness absorbing his breaking sobs…

That ledge. That particular, stony ledge. The one that haunted his every nightmare. Where he had tried to suck in air into his chest but could not. He had tried and tried and tried… and no air would come in. Not able to move any part of his body, feeling tired, so tired. And hurting. It hurt so much…

He died on that ledge.

Ori straightened himself up, his antennas shifting upward, his eyes widened and pupils shrunk to tiny dots. His entire body shook uncontrollably, the young spirit hyperventilating. He couldn’t see the way ahead or think of much of anything. Then, after a moment, he finally realized that he was hearing choking, panicked crying in a voice that was very similar to his own with another voice trying to say something.

Oh, it’s because it’s his own. And that other voice is Sein, panicking.

“Ori! Ori! Are you alright? What happened?”

Slowly, he stopped hyperventilating and then, doubled over. The world spun, his vision blurry from the tears. A single thought gripped the entirety of his being. The memories of all those dead kin he had absorbed, that had granted him those abilities but also those images, those emotions.

Pain. Terror. Agony. Despair.

“I-I don’t wanna die…” His legs refused to cooperate. He found himself on his knees, unable to stand. “I-I don’t wanna be a tree. I don’t wanna be a tree…”

“You won’t be a tree, Ori. You won’t be a tree. Here… I am here, Ori. I am here…”

He closed his eyes briefly, letting Sein brush against his fur. He is here. He is… here. He won’t be a tree. He doesn’t want to be a tree. He won’t be a tree. He doesn’t want to be a tree. He… all he need to do is reach that Spirit Well.

“Sein? Is that Spirit Well near here?” He managed to ask.

“Yes. Yes, Ori it is. Just around the corner! Just a tiny little jump and we’ll be there.” Sein said. Then, she floated there for a moment. “We don’t need to reignite the Element of Winds right away. How about we just stop by Thornfelt Swamp again, make a short detour? Don’t you remember how pretty the lakes were, now that the Elements of Waters is lit? I’ll show you my favorite spot. We’ll just… take a few days off. Wouldn’t you like that, Ori?”

“Yes. I would like that.” He said, looking at the ball of light. “Thank you, Sein.”

The ball of light floated a bit away and then, put itself at his side, floating near his head. “Just one tiny jump and that Spirit Well will make all the hurt go away. Then we’ll have some time by the lakes.”

Just one tiny jump. He made plenty of jumps in his quest. Yep. Just one more jump. He stepped near the edge and looked down. As was all too common, he saw a bed razor vines at the bottom, their spikes ever so sharp, glowing with the same sickly gold and purple color that characterized the Decay and all its creations.

Just one jump. He made tons of jumps before, including in a state as bad as this. He can make it. The other side isn’t even that far. All he got to do is get enough speed, time the kick into the ground, and then send himself flying over the pit. Easy.

Stepping back, Ori broke into a run as fast as he could, building up speed. He leaned forward, as much as he could. With one of his arms limp, he could not take on his usual running stance but he could make do like this anyway.

Things happened very quickly, as is always the case with jumps.

His legs were quite unsteady in his current state and his vision was blurred, meaning he wasn’t sure if he was as close to the ledge as he thought he was. Having fallen into razor vines one too many times already because he overstimated himself and tried to leap too late, he decided to leap early. Unfortunately, he found himself stumbling.

Usually, he would simply use his arms to compensate, turning it into a spinning cartwheel jump… but the state of his arms made that impossible. Also, equally inconveniently, his tail was currently also incapacitated. This meant that when he tried to compensate for his poor start to the jump, he found himself instead faceplanting and rolling.

Turn out he didn’t start the jump as early as he thought and found himself suddenly staring at the ledge from below, while tumbling down back-first.

He messed up the jump.

A mix of horror knowing what was coming and terror gripped him as his eyes widened and tears poured out, his mouth opening to scream in sheer fear. But the pit wasn’t exactly a deep one and he barely had the time to let out a startled, horrified yip before he hit the bottom.

And by goodness did he know he had hit the bottom.

The sensation never got any less painful, no matter how many times it happened. Razor vines were unnaturally sharp and he had never fallen into a patch of them that had proven an exception. Thus, he felt the long, sharp spikes as they punctured his back and then kept going, gravity and momentum pushing him down and skewering him upon them.

Fresh crimson blood, his own, splattered all over his own fur as he found himself impaled upon the razor vines, the long spikes piercing his body through his chest, sides, his remaining good arm, and one of his legs. He also felt one spike piercing through one of his ear-like flaps though thankfully none had gone through his skull.

He screamed. He screamed in pure agony. Every time he had fallen into spikes, it had been pure agony and this time was no different. It was like a dark mirror to Light, an energy that went through him and filled the entirety of his being… except in this case, it was pure pain, paralyzing him.

“ORI!” He vaguely heard Sein’s voice. She always panicked a bit when he landed in spikes but in spite of the mind-shattering pain, something was wrong. Her voice had a certain desperation that he had never heard before.

He also realized that given the sheer pain he was feeling, he shouldn’t be able to think clearly like this.

Now that he think about it, why is it suddenly so hard to move his head? He felt as if an entire part of the world, to his left, was something he could not see. He glanced down the best he could and… and…

… oh.

There is a spike piercing his… his…

“I don’t wanna die…” he whimpered, unable to keep it in.

“Ori! Hang in there!” Sein called out, floating down nearby. “Pl-please. Don’t panic. T-try grabbing that spike over there. You got to get off this thing!”

He tried to will himself to move. He knew he would die if he didn’t move. But it was hurting so much. He could move his head a bit but when he tried to move his good arm, he found that all it did was cause it to twitch. Oh and send a fresh wave of pain from his arm into his entire frame.

He couldn’t keep it in. He screamed. “It hurts! Sein, it hurts!”

“Oh, please Zion, no…” Sein whispered in horror, her voice breaking. He had already been in a bad shape before landing into the razor vines. Weakened as he is, he might… he might… No, please Zion no, she can’t think of such things. “Ori! Your left leg! You can shift your body that way!”

Ori tried, he honestly tried. His left leg tensed, hard, then twitched as the tension released. It shot a new wave of pain. He tried to scream, to breathe to keep control…but not only was his fur sticky and warm in all the wrong ways but somehow, a coppery, disgusting taste filled his mouth. He found that not only could he not breathe but something was forcing itself out. He coughed… or at least tried to as he found himself spitting blood. He was finally able to breathe… and somehow, he felt no energy from it. If anything, fresh tears poured as he realized what he had just done.

“I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna die…” he whimpered, losing control, his antennas falling limp on his forehead and his free ear flattening against his frame. “I don’t wanna be a tree. I don’t wanna be a tree…”

He tried to scream that last one but unfortunately, his serious injuries were causing a rather noticeable and ominously colored pond of sticky liquid to be forming below him.

“Ori! No! Ori! You can’t give up! Please, stay awake! Stay with me! I’m right there, Ori! I’m right there!” The sphere of light closed the distance in spite of the spikes, sliding against his chest and settling against his cheek. He felt its warmth and he heard her.

“P-please. I can’t lose you again. Not like this. Not so soon after we were reunited…” His gaze settled upon the small sphere. He wanted to talk but his entire body was just… paralyzed. He tried so hard but apart from twitches and fresh pain, he couldn’t manage it. He was just… so tired.

“T-There’s a Spirit Well right there… right there, around that corner. Please, Ori. Please don’t leave me…”

He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to die. The pain was horrible, mind-shattering. He wanted to be home. He wanted all of this to just be a bad dream. He just wanted to be with his mom. He just… why was this happening to him?

Then memories of his dead kin haunted him. How they sobbed and struggled and wanted to live but couldn’t. Of the sheer pain, the fear, and the horror that had filled their Light every time. He knew this pain, this horror. He had felt it on that ledge, on that day. And every time he took in the Light of an Ancestral Tree, he experienced it again.

The Spirit Tree, his parent and the source of all Light. Frankly, Ori didn’t want anything to do with trees. Even less turning into one. He just wanted his home to be safe, not filled with monsters, not filled with spikes, to be filled with food and warmth and happiness again.

He tried to whimper out, for help, about how he didn’t want to be a tree, to call to his mom, to anybody for help. But a gurgling sound came and his chest hurt and felt filled and sticky and every part of his body just didn’t want to stop hurting and he just wanted it to to stop and he didn’t want to die and he was dying again and he didn’t want to.

“P-please… you can’t give up.” He heard all too clearly the sheer despair in her voice. The despair that had been in the voices of his dead kin as they watched their loved ones die. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to be a tree. He didn’t want her to cry for him like this. He didn’t want to be a tree.

“I don’t have the strength to save you again. Please. You got to live. Get off those spikes. Please…”

Sein… she said… I. He had never really made the connection. Sein did state that she was somehow a part of the Spirit Tree but she had always spoke in weird grown-up ways that had confused him every time she spoke of the Spirit Tree and what it was. He had always wondered why Sein had been so happy to see him, why it had brushed against him when he had found her and somehow awakened her, thanking some Zion person that he was alive.

“... mom…” he managed to choke out.

And for a moment, he wanted to think on it, on what it meant. But he could not. He was just too tired. It was just as bad as the first time. Everything was hurting, he could not breathe, and everything was spinning and growing darker. He couldn’t even find the strength to think or wonder about anything. There was just that pain that made him so tense, so paralyzed, so heavy and he could do nothing. Everytime he tried to move a finger or a hoof, it simultaneously felt like a thousand more spikes were piercing his skin and like he was trying to swim through stone.

Everything was darker, more indistinct. There was just the pain and the faint light that twinkled in his vision. Was it Sein? It was just… so hard to think.

He wanted the pain to end. He wanted to live. He didn’t want to be a tree.

“Please don’t leave me, Ori…” Sein sobbed against the dying child’s chest, trying desperately to do something, anything. But she did not have limbs and without the considerable power of her body, she could do nothing but watch. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

But she could tell that her words were no longer reaching him. His twitching and struggling had grown weaker, his entire body starting to go limp as Ori finally gave in to despair and gave up.

“N-no! Stay with me! Please don’t take my last child from me! Zion, please have mercy!”

She charged up all of the Light she had, tried to pour it all over his still frame. But she couldn’t even begin to transform it into healing energy. She was just too weakened, even with the Element of Waters back under her control. The only true source of Light she could tap into was Ori himself and he was slipping away quickly.

Even in the haze of death that approached quickly, Ori saw the blast of Light. He saw Sein reaching out to him with what meager connection they shared. The same connection she had used, back on that stone ledge. She wanted to save him and he wanted to live. He wanted nothing but to live. Anything, anything other than becoming a tree. He tried to reach out, to answer her…

He felt her Light and felt her distress. And for a moment, he felt like he was reaching out to her with his left hand, the arm finally accepting to move. Everything was so dark and yet, so bright all at once. It was like he was staring at something that was a mix of flames and pure sunshine.

He had felt it before. He hadn’t remembered it because no one, not even those passed away, left behind that memory. It was also a memory that left you, when you were brought back. But he felt his heart being torn apart and his eyes fill with tears as he recognized it.

As his heart stopped and unbelievable pain gripped him as his body screamed for air and energy it could no longer feel, he saw his own Light, and he saw his own body. A feeling of simultaneous total weightlessness and impossible heavyness. He felt the feeble embrace of his biological mother, a tiny wisp that could not hope to possibly contain the rays that were bleeding out of his frame, leaving him just like his precious blood had.

She tried to grab into him. Though his hearing was gone, he felt her words, her intent through her own Light as she poured everything that she had, all that she was, into him. Trying to hold into him.

“Please Zion… take me instead. He is just a child. My last child. Please… take me instead…”

But without the reserves of the Spirit Tree, Sein’s Light was just too feeble to hold him.

Without his body to contain it, his Light could not retain its shape. He felt his thoughts flee from him again, a sense of emptiness growing deep within. His entire being was stretching, dispersing, dilluting. Everything that he had known, slipping from his grasp. His very fear and pain left him, drifting into the skies like motes of dust. He didn’t think anything of this. He could no longer form thoughts.

For the second time, Ori let out his last breath. Sein screamed, reaching with everything she had to hold him on, to save him.

The miracle did not occur again.

“Ori… Ori…” Sein sobbed uncontrollably. “My child is dead… all my children are dead… my tribe is extinct… Nibel… Zion, what have we done to deserve this? What have I done that is so terrible, that you took from me everything I ever loved? Why did you punish my children? Why have you taken my son’s life…”

Her body withering and dying in the meadows, the last of her Light reserves slowly burning themselves out, Sein grieved for her last child, for Nibel, and for her last hope of giving him a future. Diminished as she was, she couldn’t even pull him out of the razor vines so he could be given proper rites and a resting place to take root in, among his ancestors rather than impaled upon some creation of Decay’s spikes.

Why had Kuro murdered her tribe and condemned her to this slow death? She would never know. Neither did she care anymore.

Her last son is dead. Her family is dead.

Nothing matters anymore.

As the void claimed him and everything he ever knew slipped away, Ori found himself standing by the edge of a forest unlike any other. Though he could not remember ever setting foot in it, he recognized it instantly. He had come from here, and had already returned to it once.

Though the forest was one of absolute, perfect blackness, he could see perfectly, with the light of the moon shining pure, clean, immaculate. He basked in its light, true and divine, unfiltered by the imperfections of the world he used to know.

As he looked at each of the trees, he recognized some of them. He had seen their Ancestral Trees before. But the Ancestral Trees, they are… back in Nibel, right? This isn’t Nibel. He know he is home and yet, somehow, he is not home. He just feels…

“It isn’t their Ancestral Trees. It is their Light. They are… home.”

He turned to see what he thought was a tall spirit with large horns and an odd scarf-like leaf coming from his neck, like some kind of reptile-mammal hybrid. But somehow, he saw a tree. Yet, he also could see his shape as a spirit. In fact, he realized that every tree was, somehow, a spirit. Some tall, some small, some young, some very old… and yet, simultaneously, each was a tree.

And he could feel them, their whispers gently sliding against his frame, the wind pure, more pure than any he had ever felt in his life.

“Your destiny will never be fulfilled now.” The spirit-tree said, turning away from him and sighing, even though the tree, being a tree, did not move. “So much was hanging in the balance. Nobody blames you. There is only so much a child can do. I just… I had hoped to cease seeing children come here before their time.”

“W-who are you?” Ori said. It was like he could recognize him but the name eluded him, like it was just on the tip of his tongue.

And then… Sein. Sein! Destiny! Nibel! He-he…

Oh no. He recognize this place fully. He… he…

“I am dead. Again.” He choked, falling on his knees. His eyes widened in horror, his pupils shrinking to dots. His entire body trembled as the finality of this ultimate horror registered. He even noticed how he wasn’t breathing, how his heart wasn’t beating, how his Light wasn’t flowing.

He is dead again. This is the Forest beyond Death. The void before Light is sparked and after it has been extinguished.

His Light has been extinguished.

“I-I can’t… mom… my home…” He tried to beg the strange spirit. He had to go back again, he had to save them. He wanted to live. He wanted to live and he didn’t want to be a tree. He didn’t-

He felt the light of the moon brushing against his shoulders, driving him to stand back on his feet. He closed his eyes, the wind brushing against his face, wiping the tears away.

“Your destiny will never be fulfilled now. I am sorry, kid. I really am. You gave it your best shot.” There was a slight moment, the spirit’s voice sad. “You know, she tried to bring you back again. Prayed she would be taken instead of you. She gave her life for Nibel twice, now. She would do it a thousand times for you. You were loved, Ori. You lived your life surrounded by love.”

That didn’t make it better. He grasped at his head. He had to go back. He wanted to go back. But he felt it. The connection, that thin strand of fate and Light that had connected him to life… it is gone. Everywhere he looked, an endless forest, darker than the blackest night, stretched infinitely into a horizon that had no end. There was no way out. Not anymore.

“I cannot do much, I am afraid. I have long departed this world, my body withered, my Light extinguished. The only mercy I can give you is the one every one of our kind is given, as per the will of the moon almighty. Your regrets, your sorrow, your pain, it will be washed away.”

“I don’t want to be dead. I don’t want to be a tree…” he sobbed, as the spirit put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s okay. You will forget everything. There will be no pain, none anymore. Your journey is over, Ori.”

And at that moment, Ori looked to the skies and felt the light of the moon in all of its splendor. Its light, pure and overpowering, went straight through him, inviting his. Countless spirits, including Fil, stood there too. Their own Lights intertwined with his.

He stretched, his Light feeling and filling the Void.

True to the ancient’s words, no memories or emotions of his past remained as the Light of what had once been Ori returned whence it came, rejoining the infinite Light from which he was born.

His journey is over.


End file.
